Exodus 17:8-13, Psalms 120(121), 2 Timothy 3:14-4:2, Luke 18:1-8
Mission Sunday
“Missionaries of Hope Among all Peoples”
Dear Friends, today our mother Church celebrates World Mission Sunday. Mission Sunday is marked to renew the missionary spirit in every Catholic. It is also the day that we remember and pray for all the missionaries, especially those working in challenging missions.
Taking from the theme of this year’s ordinary jubilee, “Pilgrims of Hope”, this year’s Mission Sunday theme is “Missionaries of Hope Among all Peoples”. From the Vatican II document Ad Gentes, §2, we read that “The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father.” By virtue of our baptism, we are called to become missionaries of the gospel. The vocation to Christianity is not a call to passive waiting for the Kingdom of God but an active participation in the mission of building that kingdom here on earth among all people.
You do not have to become a missionary priest or religious to participate in the mission of the Church. Reaching out to those in need around you and collaborating with those in mission land is just as good as going to the mission land. Some decades ago, missionaries left Europe and America to go to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They mobilized personnel and resources to build infrastructure that would directly or indirectly transform the lives of the people. These included schools, health centers, clean water, and worship centers. Today, there is almost no missionary personnel going to mission land. However, a lot of resources continue to reach mission difficulty missions. Today, there are many missionaries from Africa and Asia going to Europe and America.
The world today is darkened by the cloud of hopelessness. Many people are suffering because of poverty, war, climate change, and injustices. The missionary mandate of the Church is to bring hope to all. Hope is one of the core themes in the writings of St. Paul. For him, hope is not just mere optimism but a deep trust and confidence in God’s promises fulfilled in Christ. In the letter to the Romans, St. Paul writes, “But hope is not unfounded, because the love of God is poured forth in our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). Again, hope is not something we passively possess but rather, it is founded on an active relationship with Christ.
For us Christians, hope is both a virtue and a spiritual attitude. It literally shapes how we live, trust, and persevere in life. Hope is the last thing that remains when everything else is lost. We cannot afford to lose hope. According to St. Paul again, hope “is the assurance of things hoped for” (Hebrews 11:1). It gives us confidence to move forward even when everything seems impossible,
With hope, we do not need proof because “hope that is seen is not hope” (Romans 8:24). My mission is a tough one, not only because of Socio-political and economic challenges facing the people that I serve, or the geographical remoteness of the mission, but also because of the unique culture of the people. The Maasai people, like many other communities in Africa, still find Christian faith very foreign and intrusive in their way of life. Our main strategy has been to find creative ways to strip off the gospel of all foreign undertones and let it permeate and transform the receiving cultures. I always ask the people in my parish whether they would like Jesus to be like them, or for they to be like Him. When I arrived at the mission six years ago, I had a lot of fears. However, I held on to hope, hope that God would provide me with the necessary means. I look back with a lot of amazement at how our collaborative efforts have transformed the lives of the people.
In the first reading today from the book of Exodus, God promised to be with the people of Israel when they battled with the Amalekites. However, there is something that Moses had to do. He had to keep his hands up in prayer. We are told that as long as Moses kept his hands up, Israel won. The problem came when Moses’ arms grew heavy, and he could no longer hold them up. At this juncture, Aaron and Hur supported his arms and kept them up. You can be Aaron and Hur, to support many missionaries in difficult missions with your contributions. It is not the quantity of the contribution that matters but the love with which you give.
Hope instills in us perseverance and endurance. There have been times when difficulties bring desperation and hopelessness in the mission. Transforming a people’s culture is an uphill task. When people know only one way of doing things, it is difficult to speak to them about other ways. Often, our well-intended interventions have been misinterpreted as intrusion and misguidance. Some interventions have even put our lives at risk (e.g., preaching against Polygamy, FGM, and child marriages). But hope has helped us remain steadfast. It has given us spiritual stamina when things are dark and uncertain. As St. Paul puts it, “Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3-5).
Often, people ask me, How have you been able to survive in such a difficult mission? I cannot think of a better answer than “hope”. I have come to the realization that genuine hope fills the heart with joy even amidst suffering. It gives one inner peace knowing that the Lord of the mission himself is in control. Equipped with the Gospel of our Lord, and with commitment and dedication, we can transform people’s lives.
In today’s second reading, St. Paul reminds Timothy that “All scripture is inspired by God and can profitably be used for teaching, for refuting error, for guiding people’s lives, and teaching them to be holy. This is how the man who is dedicated to God becomes fully equipped and ready for any good work.” Mission without the Word of God is devoid of integrity.
When our founder, St. Arnold Janssen, went to see his bishop with the idea of starting a new mission house dedicated to training missionaries, the bishop wondered where he would get the resources for such a huge enterprise. St. Arnold told him that the money was in the pocket of the good people for goodwill. Indeed, it is the contribution of good people that made the idea of the first SVD mission house come true in Steyl, Holland, in 1875. Today, SVD has close to 6000 SVD missionaries working in 79 Countries on all continents. In Simanjiro, we dedicate ourselves to transforming people’s lives, and God provides resources through many good people from all over the world.
In the Gospel reading today, Jesus emphasizes the need to pray persistently without losing hope. In a world where people are enslaved by outdated cultural traditions, discriminatory social norms, oppressive politics, unjust economic systems, and conflicts, one cannot bring about transformation without being deliberate and persistent in their interventions. There are many good people with very good intentions and the necessary means to transform people’s lives in the world, but who cannot do so because of a lack of persistence. Patience has become a very scarce commodity. It is very easy for one to yield to challenges, get discouraged by the slow phase of transformation, resistance, and opposition.
Dear friends, as we celebrate this mission Sunday, I want you to know that you can be a great missionary without going to mission land. Your contributions can do a lot for the people in the missions.
Blessed Sunday.
Fr. Lawrence Muthee, SVD
SVD JAMBO KENTAN 